It has been a long time but here goes...

Today is my birthday.

I read a small passage in some Vonnegut book many years ago which had a lasting effect on me. Vonnegut writes about the sad plight of those of us with mediocre talents living in the mass media world of the twentieth century. In the 1800s if you were an above average storyteller, jokester, tapdancer, singer, or anything at all you were well known in your town. Perhaps the whole community got together for a yearly polkathon and declared a winner. Perhaps you won this prestigious honor every year for twenty years straight. People from neighboring villages would say, "Wow that Gary he can really Polka". As undisputed Polka king you had fame and all of the advantages it brought. Then came radio, movies and television and the playing field got much larger. You were no longer competing against your six-fingered neighbor with a drinking problem. You were competing against an entire country or perhaps planet with room for just one polka champ. Other would be town heroes were forced to hang up their leiterhosen and and recognize the greatness of one individual. Legions of people with mediocre talent forced into retirement.

The world has become a tiny place with original thoughts few and far between. No matter what your area of specialty there is at minimum a blog and more probably a trade magazine on the topic. It is increasingly hard to make a difference. This leads to the existential crises of "Why other"? To this depressing question I often think of the works of Victor Frankl. Frankl wrote in his book "Man's search for Ultimate Meaning" that man has a responsibility to live a life in search of uniqueness. By living uniquely you leave an indelible fingerprint on the planet. Frankl suggests the best way to achieve uniqueness is through personal relationships. If you have a personal effect on another person's life then you have achieved a unique position in that person's life and by entangler have become unique yourself.

Nothing makes me feel more mediocre than being at Columbia. Every person I meet is at least as smart as I am an in more cases than not is substantially more so. To break the malaise of my mediocrity I decided to embrace the words of Frankl and have a unique effect on some other person. Today I befriended a complete stranger with the sole intention of having lunch. We talked about not a whole lot in particular but managed to become friendly. I have succeeded in being unique today and at least one existentialist would be proud.

I just finished my first real class. 180 people working on a case study. In just 2 hours I have become convinced that my four years in college was a monumental waste of time. The difference in caliber of student, educator, material and facilities is not to be believed.

I thought Orientation week was going to be a snap. A few dull lectures on no means no, maybe also means no and yes only means yes with the following forms signed in triplicate, notarized and bearing the bursar's seal. Perhaps even a goofy treasure hunt to build teamwork. Man was I wrong. 8AM until 10PM every day from Tuesday until Friday. My actual school schedule is easier.

More later. I am off to a teambuilding breakfast!

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the insightful book "The Tipping Point", wrote an informative article about the life of Stanley H. Kaplan. The article, "Examined Life -- What Stanley H. Kaplan taught us about the SAT", contains this offensive quote penned in 1918 by Herbert Hawkes, then Dean of Columbia University

"We have not eliminated boys because they were Jews and do not propose to do so, ... We have honestly attempted to eliminate the lowest grade of applicant and it turns out that a good many of the low grade men are New York City Jews. It is a fact that boys of foreign parentage who have no background in many cases attempt to educate themselves beyond their intelligence. Their accomplishment is over 100% of their ability on account of their tremendous energy and ambition. I do not believe however that a College would do well to admit too many men of low mentality who have ambition but not brains."

I am commencing an MBA degree at Coulmbia University in just 11 hours so I am forced to think -- Do I have any talent or am I just a "grunt" with ambitions greater than my own abilities?

When I attempted my first GMAT exam I scored at roughly the forty fifth percentile. I attempted a second GMAT and moved into "above-average" hemisphere with a fifty two percentile result. I then enrolled into the Kaplan GMAT course. I studied for 10 hours a day, six days a week, for six weeks. In the end I scored a ninety fourth percentile. My take away from the experience -- the GMAT is 100% coachable and represents nothing about the person that you are or more importantly the person that you can be.

History will reveal if I gamed the system to get into Columbia or if I was really Columbia material all along. Right now I cannot discern the difference.

I have added a link to the blog Angry at Politics which is authored by a rather erudite and currently couchbound friend of mine. In his most recent post he discusses why John Kerry lost his bid for the US presidency. Commentary Magazine has some ideas on the topic as well.

In light of the recent tsunami I have been considering the nature of tragedy. I have been considering the question, "Which is worse -- The loss of innocent life to a natural disaster or to terrorism"?

Clearly, the magnitude of death and human displacement resulting from the December 26th tsunami puts it into its own league of tragedy. My question is really a philosophical one. Removing the calculation of magnitude which type of tragedy should be considered greater.

To further consider this issue I talked to some friends about the nature of innocence. The extent to which the victims of either of these classes of tragedy could be considered less than purely innocent could be a deterministic heuristic in this analysis.

Cultural relativist would have us believe that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." To the US Army the Iraqi Batthist insurgents are terrorists. To Michael Moore they are the Minutemen of Iraq. In this sense the victims of any terrorist attack could be considered less than 100% innocent. It would follow then that the casualties of a natural disaster are more tragic than those of a terrorist attack.

To counter this I would posit that the victims of the natural disaster are not 100% innocent as well. If the planet were completely uninhabited then last week's tsunami would have still occurred. Man, in setting up shop in the path of a pre-destined disaster without any systems in place for warning or any plans for when the disaster arrived, made a losing wager with nature.

I am back where I started.

Whenever multiple societies seek ownership over scarce resources there is bound to be conflict. Within the scheme of this conflict, rules, or more accurately conventions, are likely to emerge. When one of the actors within the conflict is at an overwhelming disadvantage to the other actors there is a logical point at which they will no longer follow the rules. This is the point at which the tactic of terrorism will emerge. There is no society that can bare the social and economic costs of a zero tolerance policy to terrorism. As a result I believe that terrorism is inevitable and its tragic effects cannot be mitigated.

Natural disasters are inevitable as well but their effects most certainly can be mitigated. The costs of setting up early warning systems and proper evacuation plans are well within the reach of the societies at risk to natural disasters.

In the end I feel the tremendous loss of life last week is a tragedy of callousness. The societies most effected did not do enough to protect their most vulnerable citizens. Possible defenses existed but were not taken advantage of. The victims of terrorism are truly defenseless. There will always be people seeking to gain advantage by means of terrorism, no society can realistically protect themselves from it and the deaths resulting from it will be all the more tragic as a result.